Things Same Sex Couple Have To Put Up With That Other People Don’t Have To Put Up With This Valentines Day

Things Same-Sex Couple Have To Put Up With That Other People Don’t Have To Put Up With This Valentines DayThings same-sex couple have to put up with that other people don’t have to put up with this Valentines Day

It’s nearly Valentine’s Day and obviously, it is not only the singles who cringed with this event but also the same sex couples. Why? Despite them having a partner in this very timely event, they are still crushed in what society think of them showing their love for each other as a deviant thing to do.

You are not alone. My boyfriend and I, too, have been very particular of showing romance in public especially during Valentine’s Day. It has been a trap that all same-sex couple has been trapped once or even still not freed.

To make it clear, I also came to see this TED video—ones that actually feature the voices of LGBT people themselves. There’s a really insightful video about Muslim drag queens from the Guardian, and a TEDx talk by drag artist Panti Bliss that is one of the most wonderfully articulated discussions of gay identity I have ever seen.

“Gay people do not get to hold hands in public without first considering the risk,” says Panti. “Gay people do not get to put an arm through another arm or a hand on a waist without first considering what the possible consequences might be. And if we decide that’s OK and we do hold hands, now those hands are not casual and thoughtless: They are considered, and weighed. Our intimate gesture is suddenly a political act of defiance, and it has been ruined.”

Recently my boyfriend and I went to Puerto Galera for our 3rd-anniversary celebration. We kissed in one spot–it was not an act of social defiance–but some people (apparently homophobic straight ones) took it as a joke and a “nasty” sexual act. That kiss was an act of love, though.

We can’t seem to kiss or hold hands with each other without doing a survey of where we are and who we are with. We can’t do romantic things casually as straight people do all the time.

In reality, we got off lightly. Moreover, two guys were almost kicked out of an Uber car for kissing recently—as if private car hire suddenly isn’t space where you can scale back the innate wariness you experience as a gay guy. Two guys in Devon recently got branded “disgusting” for kissing in their local pub and were booted out.

If Lee really wanted to experience what being a gay man is like in 2015, maybe he should have tried kissing his “partner” somewhere he felt inherently safe and alone and then documented people’s reactions.

I’m not saying that straight people can’t have this kind of dialogue with the gay community—and Lee’s stunt definitely did open a dialogue—because we need to work together to fight homophobia. Another issue with the video, though, is that, for me, if you need to pretend to undergo the struggle of being LGBT yourself before you can appreciate the fact that homophobia is both rife and damaging, it negates the idea of empathy. And without empathy toward one another, what have we got?

As Panti says in her talk, the Stonewall riots were 45 years ago. People have had plenty of time to figure this out. It shouldn’t take an “undercover” experiment to show us that homophobia is wrong, nor can a three-minute video possibly articulate the reality of the gay experience.

Things Same-Sex Couple Have To Put Up With That Other People Don’t Have To Put Up With This Valentines Day

Joemar is the Blogger-In-Chief of BaklaPoAko.Com. He is currently a graduate student in University of the Philippines Open University. He also studied at Maquillage Professionnel School of Makeup Artistry and School of Fashion and the Arts (SoFA). He is a bold advocate of education, environment and LGBT issues. An earner, dreamer and a lover. Before he was once a dream-sprouting seed. Now he's a tree in his renaissance and will always be evergreen. Hear him speak with his intelligent guide for gay news of the Philippines and worldwide, Bakla Po Ako. Confirmed!.Follow him on Twitter @belleza_joemar. Gay it forward!

Joemar is the Blogger-In-Chief of BaklaPoAko.Com. He is currently a graduate student in University of the Philippines Open University. He also studied at Maquillage Professionnel School of Makeup Artistry and School of Fashion and the Arts (SoFA). He is a bold advocate of education, environment and LGBT issues. An earner, dreamer and a lover. Before he was once a dream-sprouting seed. Now he's a tree in his renaissance and will always be evergreen. Hear him speak with his intelligent guide for gay news of the Philippines and worldwide, Bakla Po Ako. Confirmed!. Follow him on Twitter @belleza_joemar. Gay it forward!